Thunderbolt Multi Port Hub

This is the one thing keeping me from ditching my desktop for a MBP. Once they add one of these, I'm set!

 

Thunderbolt isn't meant to be in a hub, but rather daisy chained. To attach the non-thunderbolt display, hook it up at the end of the daisy chain.

 

While true, a hub without the display (aka the thunderbolt display) would be a great option to have. You could leave firewire, usb, ethernet, and a cheaper display plugged into a single hub that you wouldn't be able to daisy chain in the first place.

 

Point me to documentation that says this, because this smacks of I-see-on-Mac-and-expand-to-fill-all-mental-space. The Thunderbolt specification doesn't make any such restriction, and neither does the underlying PCIE topology.

Instead, say, "Apple's esthetic is no clutter/choice is confusing, so they chose for you by implementing Thunderbolt in a serial fashion."

Of course, I'm glad to be wrong if you can show a statement that says Thunderbolt is daisy-chain only.

 

While I've not seen anything that says there aren't other ways to configure Thunderbolt, I've only ever seen it shown and/or described in a daisy chain fashion.

http://www.macworld.com/article/158145/2011/02/thunderbolt_what_you_need_to_know.html

Intel's demo video showing (only) daisy chained devices:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ox_inwLSl0

 

The Apple Thunderbolt Display is a Thunderbolt hub. It lacks USB 3.0 and eSATA, but does a pretty good job with 2x FW800 and an additional Thunderbolt port. It also happens to have a built-in 27" IPS panel.

 

Belkin just announced a thunderbolt hub specifically for your scenario and many others as well. Search for "Thunderbolt Hub Arrived" to find multiple reviews of this hub with pictures.

 

Maybe you could link to the MR story about the same thing here.

 

i am really excited about the sudden surge in TB news + products annoucements -

I think i will wait till apple start shipping out ivy bridge hardware, and have native USB3 support.

Currently my x3 usb2, esata express-card, Fw800 ports are limiting my expansion needs - a TB hub could ultimately replace all this clutter.

I have a gut feeling that the ATD will get usb-3 in the next re-fresh - so i think i will spend my $$$ on an iPhone 5 and iPad-3 un-till next year!

P.S. a 30" ATD would be very much alluring

 

Functionally, that hub is exactly what those with good monitors need. Too bad it's so freaking ugly. It looks like an iTaco.

 

Its not like Belkin and the ACD display will be the only Thunderbolt peripherals available. Plenty more are expected.

 

i love it when people who don't understand a certain technology are having "gut feelings" about it somehow including usb3..



NOT POSSIBLE..

at least on a TB display...the bandwidth used for usb3 would take up half of the total bandwidth of a tb connection...which is why they went with usb2.

The possibility of usb3 on macs in the future will only exist if apple incorporates it (unlikely) or if some company releases a TB to usb3 converter.. tb could support 2 usb3 channels at full speed. Daisy chaining would of course allow more.

 

While you are correct, most people (myself included) don't have enough money to buy that display unless apple somehow does a christmas 50% reduction (one can dream) I don't think many people will be able to afford it.

 

At the same time, isn't it the same price as would be for a standard cinema display of the same size? That is, if it didn't have the ports, $1000 for the 27" monitor would be expected. The same number of people that would be buying a 27" monitor are now getting ports in addition. I ordered mine on July 31st, and it still hasn't shipped despite others' being shipped last week. I think that means there is demand for the monitor just like any other time.

 

Ports always oversubscribe their shared route to the CPU, so that argument against USB 3 doesn't stand. Furthermore, 4 x USB 2 + 1 x Firewire 800 + 1 x GbE = about 4Gb of bandwidth at full saturation. That's 6Gb to play with, and 7Gb if you replace two of the USB 2 ports. Though the USB 3 controller problem still stands, your bandwidth argument does not.

 

You are correct Thunderbolt can be configured in many ways, as below.



The Thunderbolt protocol physical layer is responsible for link maintenance including hot-plug detection, and data encoding to provide highly efficient data transfer. The physical layer has been designed to introduce very minimal overhead and provides full 10Gbps of usable bandwidth to the upper layers.

The heart of the Thunderbolt protocol architecture is the transport layer. Some of the key innovations introduced by the transport layer include:

•A high-performance, low-power, switching architecture.
•A highly efficient, low-overhead packet format with flexible QoS support that allows multiplexing of bursty PCI Express transactions with isochronous DisplayPort communication on the same link.
•A symmetric architecture that supports flexible topologies (star, tree, daisy chaining, etc.) and enables peer-to-peer communication (via software) between devices.
•A novel time synchronization protocol that allows all the Thunderbolt products connected in a domain to synchronize their time within 8ns of each other.
DisplayPort and PCI Express protocols are mapped onto the transport layer. The mapping function is provided by a protocol adapter which is responsible for efficient encapsulation of the mapped protocol information into transport layer packets. Mapped protocol packets between a source device and a desti- nation device may be routed over a path that may cross multiple Thunderbolt controllers. At the destination device, a protocol adapter recreates the mapped protocol in a way that is indistinguishable from what was received by the source device.


Information taken from www.thunderbolttechnology.net

 

I wish I could get a 21.5 inch TB Display

This would be perfect for our main desktop computer. Doesnt' seem likely so I am considering a iMac 21.5.